Up to the age of five, I wanted to be a builder. My neighbour, a builder called Paddy White, would come in for a cup of tea with my mother. I'd assemble all the pillows together at interesting angles, thinking he would spot my talent at a raw young age and take me on as an apprentice.

Aisling Bea

The pleasure in lovers' gifts is that they are often covert and secretive, worn next to the skin, hidden under pillows.

A. A. Gill

I firmly believe that unless one has tasted the bitter pill of failure, one cannot aspire enough for success.

A. P. J. Abdul Kalam

I developed a mania for Fitzgerald - by the time I'd graduated from high school I'd read everything he'd written. I started with 'The Great Gatsby' and moved on to 'Tender Is the Night,' which just swept me away. Then I read 'This Side of Paradise,' his novel about Princeton - I literally slept with that book under my pillow for two years.

A. Scott Berg

To steal from a brother or sister is evil. To not steal from the institutions that are the pillars of the Pig Empire is equally immoral.

Abbie Hoffman

Cry if you have a compound fracture, by all means. Or if your grandpa died. But otherwise, save it for your pillow.

Abby Lee Miller

Up to the age of five, I wanted to be a builder. My neighbour, a builder called Paddy White, would come in for a cup of tea with my mother. I'd assemble all the pillows together at interesting angles, thinking he would spot my talent at a raw young age and take me on as an apprentice.

Aisling Bea

I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder when I was barely out of my teens. Like our olive skin tone and caterpillar eyebrows, I guess it just runs in the family.

AJ Lee

The idea that one might use art for 'instrumental' reasons tends to set off alarm bells at the heart of the cultural elite, who contend that it's not a pill, that it shouldn't be asked to perform some specific function, especially something as egocentric as to 'cheer you up' or to 'make you a more empathetic person.'

Alain de Botton

Sad to think that we won't have any new stories from John Updike, one of the last century's masters. But so many here in the two volumes of his collected stories, 186 by my count, stories to read, reread, savor over the course of a cold season. Updike's genius in the short form spills out of these many, many pages.

Alan Cheuse

There was a period of time during the 'Jagged Little Pill' era where I don't think I laughed for about two years. It was a survival mode, you know. It was an intense, constant, chronic over-stimulation and invasion of energetic and physical literal space.

Alanis Morissette

My favourite pastime used to be sitting on a park bench watching people. But after 'Jagged Little Pill,' the eyeballs turned, and I was the watched one.

Alanis Morissette

What influenced me was Tori Amos, who was unapologetic about expressing anger through music, and Sinead O'Connor. Those two in particular were really moving for me, and very inspiring, before I wrote 'Jagged Little Pill.'

Alanis Morissette

There are countless studies on the negative spillover of job pressures on family life, but few on how job satisfaction enhances the quality of family life.

Albert Bandura

To govern means to pillage, as everyone knows.

Albert Camus

In our country the lie has become not just a moral category but a pillar of the State.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Mr. Hussein began building Ghazalia in the early 1980s as a home for army officers and other members of his Baath Party. Concrete mansions with pillars and domes are common in the southern half of the district.

Alex Berenson

However, if we examine the Canadian scene closely enough, we can see signs of this physical and spiritual rot settling into a number of our Canadian urban centres with a troubling spill-over into many of our more rural areas.

Alex Campbell

I used to sleep with the phone right by my pillow but I'm getting better. Now it sits on the table a few feet away.

Alex Guarnaschelli

When the Exxon Valdez spilled in 1989, I was angry. I even wrote on the back of my car, Boycott Exxon!

Alexandra Paul

My father, who is now in Heaven, was a supporter of La U, and I think the truth is that a lot of my family would like me to end up there. My dad was the pillar of the family, and sometimes people do things for their family as well.

Alexis Sanchez